Photo by Ruta Smith
Christina Miles
AGE: 33
HOMETOWN: Columbia
PROFESSION: Chocolatier
TRAVEL GOALS: Visit six of the seven continents (she’s been to four); get a new passport stamp every year
IF IT’S NOT CHOCOLATE: “I eat a lot of vegetables. I have an appreciation for anything fresh out of the garden.”
Chocolatier: A person who makes and sells chocolate. Sounds like a job a kid might dream up.
Stirring a cup of warm, dark sipping chocolate to serve her guest, Christina Miles confesses she was that kid. Growing up, she was glued to the TV whenever celebrity chefs were cooking. Her kitchen experiments earned her a reputation among family and friends as a master of sweets.
While visiting Belgium, a 13-year-old Miles tasted real, high-quality chocolate for the first time and began to dream of her own food business. Bruges Chocolaterie, her artisan chocolate shop, opened in Columbia last year, named for the friendly town where she first fell in love with fine chocolate.
“I only use Belgian or French chocolate, because they take a lot of pride in their chocolate, and it’s some of the best in the world,” says Miles, a perfectionist who scrutinizes every piece of her meticulously handcrafted and hand-painted chocolates, checking for blemishes. “I believe if I’m making something, it should be the best.”
In her first-ever S.C. State Fair competitions last year, Miles won ribbons for every confection she entered—including her popular coffee- and salted-caramel-filled chocolates and her chocolate ganache cake.
Miles’ indirect route to chocolatier—a finance degree from Howard University, teaching Spanish in rural Georgia, working for a U.S. presidential campaign—eventually led to culinary school. At every turn, she indulged her love of travel, immersing herself in local life to better understand new cultures and foods.
Part of her job, she says, is educating curious customers and students in her chocolate-making classes to appreciate “real chocolate”—the shine, snap and mouth feel of well-tempered chocolate, how to pair it with wines, and “why it costs more than a Snickers bar.”
“Once they taste it, they understand,” Miles says.
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Get More
Find Christina Miles’ chocolates in her shop on Millwood Avenue in Columbia or at the Columbia Museum of Art gift shop. Learn more about her chocolate making classes and wine-pairing events at brugeschocolaterie.com or facebook.com/brugeschocolaterie.